


Every Farthing Of The Cost

by CopperBeech



Series: Absent Without Leave [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Wings, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Dancing, Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, F/M, Handfasting, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Sedition, W. H. Auden - Freeform, Wicca
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-21 12:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20693318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: "If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution."--Emma GoldmanYou can't be a Lord of Hell and have a double life forever. Something's got to give, and it has. Beelzebub is on the run, has allies she never suspected, and has a wrenching choice to make.Also, the lesser demons are getting really good with Google Maps.Anathema Device is a badass witch, but we knew that.She explained what she had in mind.“It seems a bit underhanded,” said the angel.“It is the only way. He can never be with me again. The danger is too great. He needs to forget I ever came into his life. You can do that. I have seen you. He forgot Dagon. He forgot me – as I am.”“That was – for the good. I don’t know what to think of this.”“Please.”





	Every Farthing Of The Cost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowfang44](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowfang44/gifts).

> Once again, the onlie begetter of these lines. At the end as at just after the beginning, I thank you for asking me to persevere. I listened to them.
> 
> The full-cast, end-reckoning, final installment of the _Absent Without Leave_ series, containing everything but the kitchen sink because why not. Thanks to everyone who's followed along as I found out what happens when a Lord of Hell learns to dance. If you haven't read at least "Double Date," "I Don't Feel So Alone," and "Clothed With The Wind's Wings," you'll be coming in at the middle.
> 
> But - oh, g'wan, read the whole series from the beginning. You know you want to.

She was a Lord of Hell and she had never had to run from anything. Even in the Fall she had leapt, rather than pled or struggled, braying defiance at anyone who would dare to breach her self-containment, her sovereignty. Now she was fleeing through London streets, putting distance between herself and the portal, one shoe not quite on, because they had come up on her as she was shoving her foot into the worn trainer that had been stashed as part of her escape plan. She had known it was coming, but not so soon, so soon.

The fly buzzes away, but returns, persists to feast on what others reject. For millennia she had been the Prince of Outcasts; now she kept company with those who had been utterly extruded from the Great Plan, had broken it from within.

And she had only wanted to dance.

Hell had days, if counted only by the passage of time, but no seasons, and no change of light. It always disoriented her when she came back to her Earthly body, adjusting to the different angles of the sun, the touch of the wind. It was morning now, not too early, a softness even in London air that would become the first real spring of her existence, if she survived.

She slowed, listened. No one was following.. A scattering of the Camden Town market stalls had opened, most of them selling tat or thumbed paperbacks, but there were a few racks of clothing. They’d seen what she wore; she hadn’t meant for that to happen. Every layer of concealment mattered. Her money at least had stayed safe.

Twenty minutes later, still sensing nothing, she was at a door facing a littered pavement, a ratty zip-up hoodie over the plaid flannel shirt from her escape kit, trying with her palm on the flaking panels to feel her way into the wards the angel had put on it. It had been Crowley’s idea to ask him; he’d wanted to add a layer of safety to anywhere she spent time on Earth, and any safeguard woven by the angel would resist Hell better than what she or Crowley could do. But that made it more difficult for her to find her way in, and the door at this hour was inevitably locked. She rested her forehead on the panels, heard a crunch of debris and gravel under tires without registering it, and then: “Bella? _Bella? _Is that you? Hey – hey, it’s all right, it’s me.”

For the voice had sent her leaping away from the door as if scalded, snapping around with hunted, wide eyes, clutching the rucksack that contained everything she owned on this plane.

“What’s wrong?” asked Maurice. “You look terrible.”

She did not expect herself to collapse against him and sob.

* * *

“Now tell me what’s going on,” said the Tartarus doorkeeper as he returned from behind the bar with a tall tumbler of something red topped with a squashed wodge of lemon. “Here. I can’t make a Bloody Mary like Freddie can but I’ll have to do. It’ll brace you up.” She took a swallow. It was full of burn from the pepper sauce and vodka, but it centered her.

“I – was afraid I was being followed,” she said. “Cr – Anthony said I’d always be safe here. It was the first place I thought of.”

“Right about that. What, that prick of an ex still bothering you? Sorry I didn’t decorate his face a bit more.” Maurice had never been disabused of the notion that Beelzebub’s first experience of the club, where nightly he admitted legal-age patrons and ejected obstreperous drunks, had involved a jealous boyfriend, otherwise known as Hastur, Duke of Hell, and an impromptu amour with Crowley in the ladies’ toilet. It was considerably more complicated and less racy than that, but it was a story he understood.

“He – yes. And some of his friends.” Stick to what they could grasp. The drink was steadying. Maurice mixed another.

“Lucky I came here to take care of a few things and let in the cleaners. Listen, he comes looking for you, I don’t care how many of his sorry mates he’s rounded up, I’ll send them all to Casualty. Call some friends, I’ll stay with you till they get here.”

“My phone’s broken.” She did not add that she had stamped it under her heel herself, afraid that they would use it if they could find her, to find Chaz, to learn more than they already had.

“Fuck that tosser. _Never _agree to meet them, love, no matter how sweet they talk.” He dug in his jacket pocket. “Anything I hate, it’s a sad bell-end tries to make himself big by pushing women around.” If he wanted to believe her controlling ex had broken her phone, that was fine. “Here, I’ve got Anthony’s number. Might not be awake at this hour, but you can stay here till we reach him. Splash a little water on your face, I’ll get you a bar cloth.” Maurice grinned. “You know where the toilets are.”

* * *

She’d answered the phone, not thinking much of it. Only Chaz ever called her on it, though he mostly liked to text. She had taken to always keeping it in her jacket pocket, woven with concealing wards; the vibration when a text or call came in was comforting. The voice on the other end of this connection was not.

“Lord Beelzebub,” it said, a grinding tone like bones crunching; she was sure he did crunch a few, sometimes. “So good to find you – available. Are you enjoying your new toy?”

The world narrowed to a point that seemed to contain only panic. How had _Asmodeus_ found out she had a mobile phone, much less been able to call it? “Good – morning, Lord Asmodeus,” she said. “Have you obtained one of these too? It is very helpful for observing the mortal plane now that things are so – unsettled. Yes, I like it quite a bit.”

“Oh, no, not the phone. Odd little things, aren’t they? No, I meant your mortal toy. We don’t know who he is, yet. But you’ll tell us before we’re done with you. Isn’t it curious, oh Lord of Flies, that you should be the one to betray Hell? How far back does it go? How many of the little scum from the work gangs have you sent up? I can’t wait to learn the whole story.”

She was already scrabbling in a pocket dimension for the emergency rucksack, thumbing the phone to Speaker as she pulled the clothing on. “I so look forward to the introductions. He can meet us all in turn, and then you’ll watch what we do to him before we finish with you.”

She composed her voice as best she could. “I do not understand this conversation, Lord Asmodeus,” she told the phone as she pulled a trainer onto one foot. “Let me come to your office to discuss this more comfortably. I –”

“Oh, no need,” said the voice of fracture and rending. “We’re already coming to you.”

That was when she had brought down her boot heel on the handset, hard.

* * *

“They were almost there already,” she told Crowley, who had showed up about a half hour after Maurice’s call. The doorkeeper had retreated to a discreet distance across the empty, grungy clubroom and was playing Sudoku on his mobile, a cup of coffee at his elbow. He had finally remembered there was a Keurig in the business office, if that is what you can call a large pantry closet. “Of course I was not going to discuss anything with Asmodeus. He has been looking at me in a certain way for some time. I cannot think how he called the phone. But – Hastur was with him, and Dagon, and some of the others who I know have always viewed me with – envy. That was normal. They remained afraid of me.”

She had taken some of the coffee herself, after discovering that two Bloody Marys at an earth-body time of about ten in the morning were fairly disabling and she was too exhausted to sober herself much. It still reminded her of times before the Fall, when everything had been clarity and light.

“They were coming from both directions. They had – shackles, and – other things.”

“I remember the shackles. Great outsize showoffy shackly things. Went clank.” Crowley didn’t, truly, because it was Aziraphale in his form who’d been stuffed into a Hell-bound van, but they’d kept up the pretense.

“And – _Uriel_ was with them. Carrying a – a vessel. I could guess what was in it.”

“They get an idea they like, they stay with it. So they’d called in the Other Side again to play Gunga Din?”

“I do not – “

“Sorry. Water carrier. It’s Kipling. He was one of theirs.” Crowley’s phone pinged. He pulled it out, thumbed a few words onto the screen. “I can’t believe he’s learned to use the thing. Looks like we’re sorted. All right – _how_ did you get out of that?”

“It took all my strength.” The rucksack hanging from one shoulder, the second trainer still untied and folded under her heel, she’d stretched a hand in either direction, summoning up the dregs of ethereal energy that remained to the Fallen, and struck. The effort all but blinded her, but she saw the white-suited, brown-skinned angel stagger, the glass ewer crash to the floor. It was like an ignition of thermite. Two demons from Hastur’s staff were dissolved on the spot – he barely leapt out of the way in time – and there was instantaneous panic in both the approaching legions, opening the way for her to break through the side that wasn’t currently facing a spreading, seething puddle of Holy Water. The portal was down two levels, in a utility closet sealed with her wards. Junior scut demons scattered out of the way as they realized who was wearing the plaid shirt, ragged jeans and thrift-shop Nikes. And then the silent explosion of the off-grid portal had delivered her to Camden Town.

  
“Got a plan?” said Maurice, looking up as Crowley rose several minutes later. “I’ll handle things at this end if he comes around tonight. Look forward to it.”

“Ta, Maurice. You’re a solid bloke.”

“Aren't you worried he’ll come after you? Sometimes it’s not useless to call the rozzers.”

“I’m more worried for the one that got her in the end. Up you come, Lor –– love.”

“I wondered.” Maurice offered a fist bump. “See, that’s a real man. Not a sore loser, still a friend. But he still might give you trouble if he knows where to find you. Shows up here, he’ll end up in the nick.”

“Naah, he knows not to try anything with me,” said Crowley. “I’m taking her to stay with a friend.”

* * *

“As it happens, I just heard from that young man of yours this morning. Asking about the hours today. I suppose I am terribly irregular.”

“You must not tell him I am here.”

“Why ever – ah, I see.” Aziraphale was a romantic, but he understood the danger to “Bella’s” student – friend? Lover? – he was actually bursting with curiosity, but too decorous to ask. “Well, there are plenty of places in here to stay out of the way. The wards will keep out anything, even if they show up three deep on the pavement. And Crowley and I, you may recall, have considerable experience in keeping _secrets._” He gave the demon a fond look. “He often chaffs me about it. But you’ll have to do something about him sometime, won’t you?”

“I was planning to ask you to help with that.”

She explained what she had in mind.

“It seems a bit underhanded,” said the angel.

“It is the only way. He can never be with me again. The danger is too great. He needs to forget I ever came into his life. You can do that. I have seen you. He forgot Dagon. He forgot me – as I am.”

“That was – for the good. I don’t know what to think of this.”

“Please.”

She could not remember using the word in the six thousand years before she had manifested on Earth, learning to become part of it.

“Well – if you think it’s really the only way.”

"I fear – “

“Speak of the devil,” said Crowley, a heroically unfortunate choice of words.

The doorbell chimed as he spoke, and Chaz stepped into the shop. She turned, bolted, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“_Bella?”_

He dropped his overfull student’s rucksack inside the doorway, ran forward, grinning at Kleig-light wattage and catching her up in a hug. She struggled. “_Bella!_ What’s wrong?” She couldn’t tell him. Chaz turned to the angel and the demon, both telegraphing alarm through every attitude of their bodies. “What’s happened?” he said.

* * *

“This is mad,” said Chaz.

“No, it is not. You have to forget me. I mean, _really_ forget. It can be made to happen.”

“You’re talking bollocks, love, I don’t even begin to understand it. Someone’s got it in for you, and you’re hiding in here with Mr. Fell, and that means we’re over? Just like that? This is completely mad. Come with me.”

“_No._ It may already be too late. You might not be safe if you leave. I think they have an idea where I would go. Some of my friends might even … tell.”

_“Oh, what!” _He began to look angry, rising from the chintz settee to pace the little nook where Aziraphale had left them to talk, away from the high-windowed shopfront. “If you wanted to break up, love, you could have told me something. Something I said? Cold feet? I can give you time if you need it.”

“Time is what we do not have.”

“If you don’t start making sense I’ll – Bella, love, yes, I love you, there I said it, stop this. It’s mental. Something’s happened to you, but we’ll fix it. I’m not leaving you.” He rejoined her on the settee and pulled her to him bone-crackingly tight; after a moment she let herself soften against him.

“I do not want you to. But you must.”

“Give me one good, really good reason why.”

She considered quietly.

“All right. But you must promise – not to be afraid.”

He looked at her with an unreadable expression as she eased herself from the embrace and stood; removed the tattered hoodie jacket, pushed up the short sleeves. Sigils in the script of Hell seemed to glow faintly in the dusty dimness.

“Try this. My name is not Bella. I am six thousand years old. And until this morning, I was a Lord of Hell.”

The air began to curdle around her, a shadow with nothing to cast it.

“Pull the other one – it’s got bells on! Look, we can get you to casualty, if you need meds I’m not bothered, I love you no matter – “

A buzzing sound began to rise at the edge of hearing. She held both hands up in front of her. Two faceted, glowing red orbs begain to take shape atop her head, hairy jointed legs capturing her hair like a snood. Wings unfurled from her back, obscuring the noonday shafts that came down from the skylight.

Chaz emitted a number of unrelated vowels on a high E flat.

“Do you not zzzsee now,” she said, “why you muszzzt forget me?”

He was pale, and for a moment looked like he might collapse, but his eyes didn’t leave hers. The breaths he took were audible, shaking; words tried to leave his lips but wouldn’t come; he could only shake his head from side to side.

Finally he managed “No.”

She was not going to take it for an answer.

* * *

In the end he agreed, but on a single condition.

Aziraphale had one look at the expression on Chaz’s face when they came back to the shopfront and reached under the desk for a bottle. “Well, I can see the day drinking is well underway,” said Crowley, turning from where he stood to the side of one window, eyeing the street. “I’m picking up something. Can’t say, might be random demon.”

“Do you really think so, dear?”

“No. I’m guessing the homeless oiks over there. One of them’s trying to busk and making a rubbish job of it. Aw, mate, come on, that’s the third time you’ve dropped it. I can juggle better than that.”

Aziraphale was dialing the all-but-antique store phone.

“Oh, I’m so glad I found you at home. I’m dreadfully sorry to be a bother but – this is a bit of an emergency.” It took a moment to explain.

“ –– “

“Yes, I’m sorry, right away, As soon as you can. We already may have company, I’m afraid.”

“ –– “

“”I can manage it from here, but I can’t promise it won’t be a shock. Tell me when you have what you need.”

A long minute went by, two.

“All right, are you ready, my dear? Steady yourself. I don't often try this with another person -- it takes rather a lot out of me -- and it may make you a bit giddy.”

There was a sudden crack, and a gap seemed to open in the empty space in front of Aziraphale’s desk. A noise like the intake of air into a vacuum was followed by the heavy thud of a body on the patterned rug, a book flying one way, a long flat wooden box the other, falling open to spill a tangle of silk cords. Long black hair trailed on the carpet as Anathema Device, wearing a blue skirt and short smart jacket to match, first dropped her forehead to the wool pile, then lifted it again to upchuck loudly over the Axminster floral.

“Oh, dear,” fussed Aziraphale.

“I’ll get a towel,” Crowley said.

* * *

“Usually there’s at least a session with the couple. To confirm the truth of their intent. I’m really just learning the entire process myself.”

“You did it beautifully for us, dear. There’s not as much time now. Are you feeling better?” Aziraphale was replacing an ancient bottle of sal volatile in his desk drawer.

“The tea helped.” Anathema opened the book on her lap. “Well, we have two witnesses. No rings, I suppose.”

“Bella” usually wore five or six, but today her fingers were bare.

“They’re coming this way,” said Crowley.

“They won’t be able to get in,” said Aziraphale. “Do let’s get out of sight, though.”

“No, wait,” said Beelzebub, and alarmed everyone by rising and striding to the door, whose glass was now being smeared by the nose of a rather grimy, grayish face looking in from the single step above the Soho pavement. She slipped the latch and opened it.

The face was surmounted by a slouch hat, doffed in a moment to reveal a blushing anole curled behind one ear.

“We was in the maintenance tunnels, like, and we heard ’em talking about how you have a young man and they were going to find him and make an _example_ of you both – “

“We din’t peach on you, marm. Promise. We dunno who it was but they must’ve been scared bad.”

“So we said, we’re with her, en’t we? All them trips, ‘n you kept us safe.”

“I liked the London Eye one,” said Blinkin, as Crowley still privately thought of her, who was fond of anything involving wheels.

“And we knew where you told us to come if we was rumbled, so stood to reason you’d be ‘ere too, right?”

“And we know how to use bleedin’ Google maps, don’t we?” said Nod proudly, displaying the very basic smartphone he had been keeping in his hat, secured by the tail of the anole. “We just stayed there on the pavement, performin’ like, till we were sure no one else was watchin’.”

“Time, my dears,” said Aziraphale.

“Thank you for coming,” Beelzebub told the lesser demons. Anathema had set her book on a reader’s lectern toward the back of the shop, and Chaz was waiting nearby as the witch arranged four cords beside it.

“I’m ready,” said Anathema.

* * *

“These are the hands that will hold you as you struggle through difficult times.”

Anathema had covered Bella’s hands with her left, Chaz’s with her right.

“These are the hands that will love and cherish you, that will dry the tears from your eyes, tears of sorrow and tears of joy.”

“Ooo, it’s lovely,” whispered Blinkin. Crowley administered a firm noogie.

“These are the hands that will comfort you in illness, and hold you in fear or grief. These are the hands that will bear you up when your dreams falter.”

She lifted the first cord.

* * *

Winkin was sniffling. Even Nod’s anole had turned a delicate lavender.

“Might as well meet the troops of Hell half-cut,” said Crowley, lifting a glass of Veuve Clicquot that he suspected Aziraphale of outright miracling, though they’d agreed to do as little of that as possible to keep the ether quiet. “ ‘S’always worked for me.”

“My dear. You look frightfully tired,” Aziraphale said to Bella, rather pointedly, “You’re safe in here, you know. I’d say you could use a lie-down – there’s rooms at the top of the stair. I think it's safe to take an hour, you need to recover while you can. Third door. I scarcely ever use it.”

“Shouldn’t we – “

“Young man, go keep her company.”

“Ah, go on,” said Crowley, making a perfectly obscene movement of his tongue in his cheek. He had always been able to do weird things with his tongue.

“My dear, really,” whispered Aziraphale as the pair moved up the spiral staircase.

“You knew what you were getting when you fished me up out of the brimstone.”

“I’m afraid I did. – Anathema, dear, thank you so much. I’m sorry to have interrupted your day, but you saw the urgency. Perhaps we can catch up properly some time soon? I’ve love to see the children.”

“I’m not leaving you here with this,” said Anathema, who had taken in a pretty good picture of the situation while she was getting over the dry heaves. She gestured at Aziraphale’s desk. “Do you mind? I came without my own phone. I want to call some friends.”

* * *

“_These are the hands that will dry the tears from your eyes,”_ repeated Chaz, as he lifted a corner of the sheet to “Bella’s” cheek. Aziraphale had bent the agreement about sticking to only necessary miracles a second time, and arranged for a set of Harrods' nicest linens on the brass bed.

He kissed away the last of the dampness from her lashes.

“You cried the first time, too, remember?” he said, leaving it unspoken that this time was going to be the last.

“It was the first time I ever cried,” she said.

* * *

Almost everyone had arrived. “Mabon turned out to be in town,” said Anathema. “Needed to get a few things at the Hunter’s Moon, so he was already in the shop, that was convenient. At least _he_ was able to come on foot.” She looked pointedly at Aziraphale; she was still hiccupping occasionally. “There, that’s him now.”

The very large man outlined in the glass of the doors, hair rolling to his shoulders in dark-blond waves, wore an embroidered green shirt and had the general air of an escapee from a Renaissance Festival. As Anathema let him in he made a horn sign with his first and pinkie fingers, palm turned up, and said “Merry Meet.” His voice was a resonant baritone that belonged in a Puccini opera.

“You remember my friends here, from my handfasting,” she said.

“It was a beautiful ceremony,” bowed Aziraphale, looking a little quizzically at Mabon’s hand sign and visibly relieved when the Wiccan officiant settled for an everyday handshake.

“So we have a little problem,” said Mabon.

“Yes,” said Anathema. “And we need both sides of the Craft. It’s that kind of a situation.”

“Champagne?” offered Crowley.

* * *

“Six thousand years? Truly? You’re lucky I read those daft poets a lot, you know.”

“There is some disagreement over the exact number of days and weeks. Before that there was no time. I cannot be precise about that.”

“And here I went so slow ‘cos I thought you were young.”

“I was.”

He traced the jagged, coiling symbols on her arms.

“Angels and demons. Half of me’s dead cert this is all a mad dream because I had a nasty migraine till tea-time yesterday and then I was up late reading a commentary on _Jerusalem. _Still don’t think I’d believe a bit of it, if it weren’t for those three. They’re adorable, you know. Is that really a lizard?”

“It usually is.”

They were spinning out the time.

* * *

“I didn’t realize he could do that with me _in_ it. I don’t think the tyres could take that again.”

“Well, dear, I’m sure she’ll be just as happy to drive back too.”

“Ye’re doin’ the right thing, laddie. We have to take the fight to them. It’s the only way.”

* * *

“The charm doesn’t make you invisible. That’s not how the Craft works,” explained Anathema. “It just helps people – ignore you. Whatever they see you doing, they’ll find they have something more important to think about. If you don’t go out of your way to draw attention, you won’t get any. Mabon and I can do it before you go out.”

* * *

“See, them Lords and Princes all wantin’ to be bigger than the next one, that’s all they think of. You work in the tunnels a few thousand years, you get to see it. Us, we just always did what we was told, like, trusted the leaders, but there’s lots as think differently now. Don’t have to spend Eternity herdin’ maggots and puttin’ up them posters with paste that smells like salamander poo.”

“We can go rowing on the Serpentine,” said Nod.

“You fell in.”

* * *

“You wouldn’t by chance have such a thing as a few lengths of good stout hemp rope about the place, would you?” said Mabon. “I suppose it’s not the sort of – “

“Ah – yes,” said Aziraphale. “Actually, yes, I do.”

Crowley’s ears turned a fiery red.

“We have time to weave some charms. Bring it.”

* * *

“They’re coming,” called Beelzebub as they descended the staircase, slowly and trying not to make it creak, as if that would hide them from pursuers. “I can feel them.”

She stood and stared at the last turn of the spiral.

Newt recognized Chaz, and gave a cautious wave. They had met only once, at the demon and angel’s handfasting, but had had a considerable conversation about automobiles.

“You – brought them here?” said Beelzebub, looking to the angel.

“The old cove wi’ the euphonium chundered ‘is brekky,” said Nod. “It was brilliant.”

Aziraphale winced. Sergeant Shadwell’s new life of comfort with Madame Tracy apparently included kippers for breakfast.

“That en’t a euphonium. I been learnin’ the euphonium myself, I’d know.”

“I sent him through the portal to Yorkshire a few times,” murmured Beelzebub. She almost found a smile.

Chaz looked from face to face in the room, most faintly familiar from a single meeting. Chairs from elsewhere around the shop had been jostled together in the central space to accommodate them: The stubbled codger holding something that was halfway between a brass instrument and a blunderbuss. The woman of a certain age wearing a flowered dress and too much makeup. The broad-shouldered man with a heavy chain around his neck and a ring that was a brass knuckle in itself.

“So – “ Chaz’s voice sounded as if the bottom had fallen out of it. “Are we really doing this?”

“We’re out of time,” said Beelzebub. “It won’t hurt. And they won’t find you. You’ll be safe.”

They descended the last half-dozen steps. “Principality?” said Beelzebub with the sketch of a bow.

“I am at your disposal. Afterward he’ll be back in his flat, waking up. He won’t get caught up in… what happens next.”

“I’ll just think I’ve had a bad migraine, won’t I?” said Chaz, trying to keep a hysterical laugh out of his tone. “Nothing to it.” But his eyes were shining.

“Goodbye then, love.”

Chaz kissed her as if they weren’t in a roomful of people.

“All right.”

He stepped forward, and the angel laid a hand on his brow. “It’s easier if you let your mind wander,” he said. “Think of something – random. A holiday when you were a child. A good hike.”

“Just _do it,_ mate,” said Chaz, eyes closed, struggling to govern his face.

A vibration began, a ghost of dazzle around the angel’s hand. And then there was a voice filling the space under the skylight.

“_Hel–LO! Am I addressing the Principality Aziraphale?”_

The angel dropped his hand, looked up at the emptlness.

“Gabriel?” he said.

_“I gotta say, these are some impressive wards you put up! Kind of overkill, isn’t it? We promised not to bother you!”_

“I promise not to put my foot up your arse,” growled Crowley.

_“They’re so solid that this is the best we can do at communication! Shame, isn’t it? We’re right outside.”_

Crowley moved to the window. At the opposite corner, Gabriel and Michael, in their sharp business suits, were standing in the bus shelter beside Sandalphon’s unmistakable balding head and a toothy demon whose plait of hair looked disquietingly as if tentacles were braided into it. Asmodeus. Gabriel flashed a dazzling, perfectly even smile and waved.

_“So, what do you say? Parley? I’ve got an associate here who wants to talk to your friend. How’re you doing, Lord Beelzebub? Heard we might find you here! It’s been a while since Tadfield! Don’t be such a stranger!”_

“Don’t take the bait,” said Crowley. “They’re bluffing.” Chaz’s hand crept into “Bella’s.”

_“Spirit of comity, you know? Since it’s a new unknown world! Thanks to you both! Here, let me put him on the line.”_

The voice that filled the high space surrounding the spiral stairs was the crunch of gravel under the wheels of a hearse, the grinding of a saw in bone, the squelch of joints dislocating.

_“His name is Charles Irwin Riffey. He lives at 35 Deerhurst Close, in the town of Feltham. He is sitting his Business exams in May. Do you think you can keep us from finding him? Come out, Lord Beelzebub.”_

“No,” breathed Anathema.

_“Come out, and the mortal will walk free. You will pay, but he will not. “_

“Do we believe them?” came Mabon’s peated-malt voice in a tone of amusement.

“From an expert perspective, I’d say no,” replied Crowley.

_“I heard that. So untrusting? Have we not left you alone? We have no quarrel with you, Traitor Crowley. That business is closed._ _”_

Ignoring him, Crowley addressed Sandalphon, whom he had last left jammed behind the door of a portaloo that opened directly to Below. “Oi! Slaphead! How’s Hell this time of year?”

_“Give her to us, Principality.”_

“I really don’t think so,” called Aziraphale to the general upper floors of the bookshop.

_“Then consider that Heaven and Hell are not powerless. Our word is bond. You will not be touched. But – we will be generous. Consider your decision, or say your goodbyes, no-longer-Lord Beelzebub. An hour? Then see what we can do.”_

There was a sound as of presence imploding into absence. One of the reading lamps by the nearest chintz settee spat and went dark.

“Battle stations,” said Aziraphale – who had, after all, once commanded hosts – as if he were ordering from the Dorchester Hotel dessert trolley.

* * *

The fire stair, a thoughtful feature of Adam's restoration, opened into the areaway behind the block of shops.

"That were ever so much cleaner and nicer than the service tunnels back home."

"Ssh. She said nothin' to draw attention, and we'd be fine."

"No one pays attention to us anyway."

"It's different up here."

* * *

“I still don’t quite understand what we’re doing,” said Newt.

“Thinnin’ their ranks, Private Pulsifer. Yon American birkie we leave to the Southern pansy. He wun’t hae come wi’out backup. That’s our job.”

“At least they're not looking for us. Are you all right now?"

"Aye. There's nothin' left to come up."

“Dick Turpin’s over here.”

* * *

Sandalphon wasn’t happy about being detailed into stakeout, but the thought of schism in Hell’s ranks reconciled him to it. Temporary alliances, fine. But their united front was crumbling. If you can’t have Armageddon, take the next best thing. Gabriel had rightly pointed out that with the Lord of Flies eliminated, the brainpower of Hell was reduced by at least half. And yes, they’d all pledged to the hands-off policy about Aziraphale, but it was possible that under the stress he might forget himself. Just a little bit.

“Oh, dear,” came a voice behind him. A blowzy woman with hennaed hair was trying to corral the contents of a handbag whose clasp seemed to have broken. Lipstick, hand cream, mascara, one of those little spray guns that shoots a stream of hot pepper foam at an assailant, as if anyone was going to think of assailing _her_. She dithered this way and that, bending awkwardly on high-heeled feet to scrabble up the truly amazing assortment of cosmetics and paper hankies. “Could you help, ducks? My knees aren’t what they were – I’m such a silly, I’ve been meaning to mend this – “

Sandalphon looked down in annoyance. It put his face at the perfect angle for her to aim point-blank.

“A girl can’t be too careful,” said Madame Tracy.

* * *

The junior demon tugging urgently at Hastur’s sleeve was a picture of agitation, dancing from foot to foot with need-a-piss urgency. “Duke Hastur? Prince Dagon needs you. There’s problems, like.” He yanked at the mephitic, grimy jacket that had just caused a clerk to ease the Duke of Hell out of the adult video shop, where he’d been keeping an eye out the window.

“Don’t I_ know_ you – “

He lifted the slouch hat to expose a pale, terrified anole. But at the same time Nod snatched the porkpie headgear that covered Hastur’s much more conspicuous frog when he was up top, and pelted off into the areaway behind the block of shops, dodging around bins and puddles of substances best unidentified. Hastur gave chase, bellowing Infernal swears. Up ahead, Nod gathered himself and leaped like a broad jumper; not stopping to think why, Hastur maintained pursuit and measured his length face down in a scatter of decaying rubbish, right foot hooked on a length of hemp rope tied to the wheel of a skip and stretched across the areaway by Blinkin’s steady hand.

“There’s for a thousand years of slaggin’ me off,” said Nod, loosing the rope from the bin to hog-tie the semiconscious Duke of Hell with a neat reef knot.

* * *

“Excuse me, could you give me a hand?” said Newt. “I’ve had a puncture, and I can’t quite get the jack to seat right. I don’t want my dad helping me, he’s got a dicky heart. Can you just lean on this for a tick?”

Uriel glanced either way, removed a handkerchief from her breast pocket to keep dirt off her hand, and gingerly leaned her weight on the sky-blue fender.

“That’s got it, now just a moment – “

A passerby, simply not noticing his presence, jostled Shadwell at the moment he let off his Thundergun, but it still caught the archangel a glancing strike. She collapsed prettily over the roof of Dick Turpin. Newt held her wrists and ankles while Shadwell bound them with the hemp ropes that Mabon and Anathema had charmed. Everyone passing by had something more important to think about.

“I can’t believe she fit in the boot,” said Newt. “It seems awfully rude.”

“Och, Private Pulsifer, we can’t be too nice when we’re fightin’ the good fight. Have I taught ye nothin’?”

* * *

“Prince Dagon! Duke Hastur’s come over funny, like, and we think Upstairs might’ve double crossed us – “

“Who the Heaven are you?”

“Sent by Lord Asmodeus, Prince, we was detailed as runners – “

The wheeled bin took Dagon amidships as she turned into the opposite end of the areaway. After years futilely scrubbing the slimy corridors of Hell, Nod had built up some impressive upper-body strength.

They made a pretty package tied back to back, though heavy. Blinkin sighed as she muffled both their mouths with the twelve-foot-long Doctor Who scarf she’d picked up at Covent Garden.

They picked up a lot of slime and dreck as the two custodial demons rolled them behind a particularly large bin, but it was hard to tell the difference.

* * *

“They won’t ‘miracle’ off, however it is you people do that, not after the job Mabon and I did on them. Anyone tied with them will stay tied until we break the charm. The Craft really isn’t interested in rolling over for Heaven or Hell, you know. That’s why Agnes Nutter could show you the way out.”

“For which I am unceasingly grateful to her and her descendant, Anathema.”

“Won’t miracle off?” said Crowley thoughtfully.

“My _dear._ Shouldn’t you be getting into position with your assistant?”

“Just watching you work. Nice sight on your hands and knees.”

“I’ve got this just about ready. We should be seeing the rest any minute. _Do _get a wiggle on.”

* * *

Newt and Sergeant Shadwell rapped on the fire door first, two long, three short; Mabon let them in. The two junior demons turned up a minute or two later, besmirched with rubbish. Aziraphale sighed and saw to the cleanup as they came up the fire stairs into the back of the shop.

“Where’s Tracy?” said Anathema.

“What’s happened to the traffic?” said Newt.

For the traffic of midday Soho seemed to have come to a stop. It wasn’t a backup or a broken signal; every vehicle on the pavement had ceased to move whatever, even to vibrate. People were halted in mid-step, like some sort of flash-mob folly.

Gabriel waved from the bus shelter, grinning toothily.

Sandalphon was beside him, wrapping Madame Tracy’s right arm in a grip that looked like it hurt. Asmodeus had her left.

_“Just seemed easier to put everyone else on hold,” _ came Gabriel’s voice from the air around them. _“Sandalphon, you smell like a den of corruption. What _is_ that_?_”_

_“Ask her,” said Sandalphon_.

“Obsession, _dear. I thought I had the Cap-Stun._”

Tracy wriggled in Sandalphon’s grasp and seemed to be trying for a foot-stamp.

_“Just so you know, we can keep her here till you come out, Lord Beelzebub. _We’re_ not going to hurt her, but our – diplomatic partner seems frustrated. I can’t really be responsible for his actions. What do you say?”_

Shadwell was priming his Thundergun, but there was no safe shot.

Beelzebub took a step toward the entry door.

“I've extended the wards a little past the kerb,” said Aziraphale. "Past that --"

“Bella,” said Chaz softly.

The chime sounded as she eased the door open. “Release her,” she called across the street of statues. An awning that had blown up in the breeze hung eerily, half-flapped back.

“Come over and we will. Fair trade.” Gabriel’s voice crossed the motionless air directly now.

Beelzebub stepped out on the pavement in front of A. Z. Fell & Co., but instead of crossing the street threw both arms up in the air.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be able to do much from there, Lord Beelzebub.”

But rather than striking in any way, or calling on any shred of her Infernal powers, she began to dance.

Her head tossed, her hair flew, her legs flashed. It was the dancing that had dazzled clubs all over London, measured to a rhythm that only she heard, hands pumping and swinging over her head, back arching. She circled on the pavement within the wards, then began to flirt with the space beside the kerb, kicking her foot out, drawing it back.

“What iver is she _doin’?”_ puzzled Shadwell, still trying to sight a shot, which had only become more difficult.

“What she loves,” said Chaz with strange pride. “She – “

“I’d say she’s looking to go out where she came in,” said Crowley. “You, short git. Come with me.”

Bella, for it was entirely the Bella known from the Tartarus to the Underworld to the Shadow, swept her arms out over the unguarded street as if to dive, pulled back, taunting. There were no lights, no music, but she danced like Shiva the Destroyer, opening her hands to take in the whole sky, turning them downward to bless the littered pavements. Every time she stepped down into the zebra-crossing, Asmodeus stepped forward; each time he did, she leapt back up again. Her face was ecstatic, open-mouthed, inscrutable. She turned giddily, faster, choppier, and suddenly with a braying shout whirled straight at the little assembly on the far corner. “_Bella, NO!” _shouted Chaz, slamming the jangling door back against the wall, into the road in four leaping steps to seize her. Asmodeus pounced, catching the boy’s head in the crook of his elbow and wrenching his neck back at a desperate angle.

“Your fear tastes delicious already,” the demon grated into his ear. “It will be a feast Below.” Beelzebub struck toward him, all knees and elbows now, but still whirling, still dancing. ”Lord Asmodeus, _get clear!” _called Gabriel. Aziraphale was gesturing at the window, desperately trying to extend his wards. “Michael, _now!_ Just do it!” And Asmodeus did get clear, dropping Chaz to leap as far aside as he could.

“Michael, _what are you waiting for?”_

“_No_,” said the severe, gray-suited angel.

Tracy finally brought a heel down sharply on Sandalphon’s instep, smacking him with her handbag for good measure as she rolled and scrabbled away. Gabriel seized an upscale, outsize commuter’s water bottle out of Michael’s hands and wrenched away the lid. Three things happened in the same moment: Michael’s wings hoisted like a gleaming sail, cupping a celestial light; the bottle’s contents flew in a sparkling arc straight at Bella, and Shadwell got his shot. Sandalphon folded onto the bus shelter bench.

And impossibly, inexplicably, the Lord of Flies was not a seething puddle of dissolution on the tarmac, but merely a very wet, very stunned young woman with hair streaming onto her shoulders and flattened against her scalp, shirt clinging. She reached toward the prostrate Chaz.

“_Can’t you see their hands?”_ Michael rounded on Gabriel in a tone that would have brought a schoolroom or a boardroom to order. _“Have you lost all understanding? Look at their hands!!!”_

She stepped out into the crossing; great silver pinions domed out into the motionless air, glazed with a metallic sparkle, arching over the pair on the street. Asmodeus advanced, retreated, his prey now unhelpfully covered in Holy solvent. His indecision ended abruptly as Michael rose several inches off the ground with a beat of feathers and smote him into the spattered pavement.

He steamed as he emulsified, unpleasantly.

Gabriel’s face was a perfect Greek mask of rage.

“I won’t do this any more,” called Michael. “Tell Hell they’re under my protection now. Wherever they are – if either Above or Below trouble them, I’ll know.”

And with a gesture of her hand, made in the same moment as her wings snapped back out of mortal view, the street sprang to life.

Brakes squealed at the crossing. Michael bent and seized the barely-conscious Chaz under one arm, pulling Bella after her, and called from the kerb.

“Principality?”

She did stagger a little as the wards came down. Aziraphale dried Bella with a handwave before they could enter.

“I really can’t have that stuff in the shop,” he murmured.

Gabriel was left gaping. As the street began to hum again, he realized someone was tapping his shoulder. _Touched! _By some unthinking mortal! He turned just in time for Crowley to clamp hands around his upper arms, lean in like a lover, and snap a hard, bony knee straight into the archangel’s crotch. He might have been a celestial being, but he was using an earthly corporation, and with an explosive, keening exhalation, he folded over on himself like an empty garment bag.

“Friend’s had a bad turn,” explained Crowley to a passerby as he and Winkin hustled the collapsed archangel over the crossing, giving the puddle of Holy Water and Asmodeus a wide berth. "Ready?” said Crowley.

“Just this last candle.”

Crowley deposited the wheezing archangel in the middle of the inscribed circle that underlay Aziraphale’s defiled Axminster.

“Stand back, dear.”

The angel lit a taper and made a series of gestures. A bluish luminescence began to fill the cylindrical space between the circle and the skylight. Aziraphale spoke a word in Old Enochian.

“Going up,” he said.

Gabriel whooshed into invisibility, the light following him.

* * *

Newt had called an ambulance for Sandalphon. He still wasn’t sure exactly what the Thundergun did, but it hadn’t killed him, so it seemed only decent. “I didn’t see anything,” he said, which was roughly true. “But he didn’t look good there.”

“Can’t smell any booze on him,” said one of the attendants.

“Can’t smell anything but this fooken Chanel Number Five or whatever it is,” said the other.

“You get a lot of old queens around here,” said the first, and opened the back of the truck.

“Done here then?” said Newt. “I’d just been going to get something out of my car.”

* * *

“Oh, I think I can handle it from here,” said Crowley. “Stretch myself a bit.”

He leaned back on the settee, whose floral chintz clashed hopelessly with his black clothing and scarlet hair, and hummed briefly, extending his legs in front of him.

“Got it,” he said.

* * *

“Cor, Bert, it’s Duke Hastur and Prince Dagon.”

“Tied up, like.”

“Well, if they can’t get themselves out of it, must mean they did summat to deserve it. Just clean around them.”

The tunnels and passages of Hell, of course, never get clean. It’s one of the reasons the junior demons are getting sick of it.

Bert pushed his bucket of dirty, stinking water around the tied-up pair, splashing generously as he went; reached into his pocket and pulled out an Aero bar. He munched it as he mopped his way down the tunnel, humming tunelessly.

* * *

“You. Survived. Holy. Water.”

“Crowley, this isn’t the time.”

“She’ll be all right,” said Anathema. She was holding a cup of some off-smelling herbal mixture that Beelzebub took occasional sips from. Chaz was stretched out on the carpet, one of Aziraphale’s needlepoint cushions under his head, now in a peaceful, gently snoring sleep.

Michael, who was responsible for the sleep, was kneeling by him. She had taken down her hair.

“So did you,” she said to Crowley. “That was when my mind started to change.”

Crowley had never appreciated having to wear his dark glasses more than at that moment. Almost let it slip.

“When I saw what the two of you were willing to dare for – love,” she went on. “Of the world and one another. I used to believe that Gabriel and the rest were fighting in the name of Her love. Now I’m not sure I know anything.”

“I didn’t know it was love,” said Beelzebub, startling all of them a little bit. “I only wanted to dance.”

“It’s something like the same thing, dear,” said Aziraphale, who was the only person present formally trained in dancing. “I must say, you impressed me.”

Her eyes were a million miles away. Possibly he mistook the reason.

“Would you like me to do it now?” he said. “He’s asleep. It won’t even be a bad dream to him. I believe your – former associates have learned to leave us alone. He’ll be safe, and there won’t be any pain.”

She looked up at him, a waiflike girl in a shirt that was a little too large and torn jeans.

“I can take your memories too, if it’ll help,” he said.

“Yes…” she said, handing the cup back to Anathema. “That way – I would never see his eyes not knowing me and…” The angel reached to cup her forehead and she covered his hand with her own. “When you’re ready,” he said.

Her shoulders trembled.

“_No.”_ Her hand clasped the angel’s wrist, slowly pushed his hand away. “He changed me. I will not give that up. Spare him, but I will not give that up."

“Not going to get rid of me that easily, love,” came a sleepy voice.

Chaz had turned a little sideways on the carpet, settling the cushion under his cheek.

“You agreed to do it,” said Beelzebub.

“Changed my mind,” he said. “Never to remember how your hand felt or what it was like to dance with you? Not on.”

“It’s for your sake. So that I do not cause you pain.”

“Ah, I like this being handfast thingy,” he said. “Like to do more of it.”

“Think what you are saying. You will have to grow old, and watch me do no such thing.”

“You’ll be beautiful either way. And you can push my Bath chair. Everyone could wonder how the old cove got the cute young wife.”

“They may come for me again. I cannot bring that on you.” But she now sounded as if she were trying to persuade herself.

He reached up to accept a cup of Anathema’s tea, at least Crowley was pretty sure it was tea, though his nose detected something volatile. “All kinds of things come for you in this world, love. I had a little cousin died of cancer when he was twelve. One of my mates from Primary lost an eye in Afghanistan. Me Mum’s best friend lost everything she had in a house fire. At least I know what I’m getting in return.” He slurped from the cup, awkwardly since he was still lying on his side on the carpet. “I can’t promise not to break your heart by dying – will you just promise not to break mine by leaving?”

The silence became thick. She rose, with a glance at Crowley.

“You taught me to choose bravely,” she said finally. ”I have been running away from the price. A Lord of Hell does not run from anything. I will pay – as mortals pay.”

She slipped her hand into Chaz’s. “Shall I have it said,” she went on, “that a mortal can bear what I cannot? I will take it all. All the pain. All the uncertainty. All the slipping away of time, if we can have our dance.”

“Now that sounds more like my girlie.”

“It may not even be the way you think,” broke in Anathema. “If you’re a Lord of Hell, then show yourself as you are, _Bella_.”

“What do you – “

“Humour the American witch. I put some work in here. Can I see what you are?”

Beelzebub turned to her, testy, prickly. “You would ask me _this,_ _now _– “

“Yes? I’m waiting.”

Aziraphale began to understand something. “Crowley,” he said, “are you sensing demon? Anywhere nearby?”

“Now you mention it, no,” said Crowley. “Funny.”

Bella was running her hands through her hair, working the shoulders from which no wings would spread.

“I thought something of the sort,” said Michael. “When I saw the hands.”

“What did you mean by that, dear?”

Michael unfolded her own wings then, juddering a side table and tipping over the teacup on the carpet. The gentle glow they shed played on the joined hands of the couple in front of her, showing up a crosswork of red-gold light, the patterns of the cords Anathema had laid across them only hours before.

“They’re bound,” she said, tracing the latticework with a pale fingertip.. “They’re one. One flesh, and all of it mortal.”

Crowley had not seen joy on Bella's face before, not even when she danced a club to a standstill. There may be joy in Hell, but it never rises to shine from the eyes.

"I pay this, too," she said softly, "without regret."

“I told you the Craft didn’t care anything for Heaven or Hell,” said Anathema. “It’s the old magic. From the earth and of it, and it always knows what’s needed. Mabon thought it might happen."

“Hand up?” said Chaz.

* * *

“I’d been thinking for a long time,” said Michael. “But it’s hard to break the old habits.” She had run her fingers through her hair a half dozen times by now, and it was a mare’s nest across the shoulders of her unbuttoned silver-grey jacket.

“I know,” said Aziraphale feelingly. They were in Crowley’s flat, and had compromised: Rachmaninoff, but no _bebop_.

“Took me _eternity_ to get him off the starting block,” said Crowley, punctuating the remark with a slap to the angel’s pantseat as Aziraphale rose to open the decanter again.

“_Crowley._”

“You love it.”

“You two,” said Michael. “Something I’ve always wondered about. You swapped, didn’t you?” She nodded at Crowley. “That wasn’t you in Hell.”

They both looked at her measuringly.

“Oh, no point denying it. I saw the tie on him. I notice details. It didn’t make what you did any less brave.”

“So what will you do, Archangel?” asked Aziraphale, topping up her drink. She had discovered a taste for Islay single malt. “It’s a very large world."

“I’m sure there are some mortals that need helping,” Michael said.

“Cheers.”

* * *

Aziraphale had offered to send Madame Tracy and Shadwell home the way they came, but they were quite firm about taking the train. (“Nice one, lad, right in the goolies,” the Sergeant congratulated Crowley.) He wasn’t sure what had become of the junior demons, but Bella was clear that they couldn’t go back to their posts, and they had spent a bit of time talking to Michael, who seemed amused at being addressed as “guv’nor.”

Mabon Flynn stayed long enough to speak a Wiccan blessing over the couple, and the Pulsifers had left after Chaz got a good look over Newt’s Wasabi. The angel extended the offer of his rooms above the bookshop for the night, surprising Crowley.

“Didn’t think you’d ever leave anyone alone with your precious books. What, you don’t reckon he’ll be up and down the shelves all night?”

“I don’t _think_ so, dear.”

Aziraphale’s head was companionately resting against the demon’s shoulder as they watched, on the street below, the faint glimmer of Michael in her pale garments, receding into the evening streets of Mayfair. .

“You know, I _am_ sorry. About all those – what you said. The starting block. Beel-- Bella got there so much more quickly.”

“Well, _she_ listened to me. Stubborn angel.” Crowley lifted a hand to tug the ends of the angel’s hair.

“I doubt this is really over,” Aziraphale went on.

“Oh. Nah. We may get a little trouble from them – dunno, every hundred years or so.” Crowley helped himself to a sip from Aziraphale’s glass.

“She made me think of dear Wystan,” the angel mused, leaning on the windowsill. “Get us another of those, won’t you, dear?”

Crowley moved to comply, hearing behind him the angel’s light tenor in the mode he knew so well, when, gently drunk, he was prone to reciting poetry:

“_Every farthing of the cost_  
_All the dreadful cards foretell,_  
_ Shall be paid, but from this night_  
_ Not a whisper, not a thought,_  
_ Not a kiss nor look be lost_.”

“No,” said Crowley, bringing the tumbler back, only to set it down on the sill and take his angel in his arms. “Not from this night, nor any other.”

* * *

The groups running the relief camp on the Texas side of the border were always glad of help. The people from Refugee Assistance thought the willowy, severe woman was from Oxfam, and the Oxfam people thought she was from the UN, and no one was exactly sure about the three who almost always appeared with her, but everyone agreed they were good at comforting the children. The tallest attempted magical tricks – which were desperately inept, but the children didn’t care – and always had a sweet tidbit for them. Micaela was an odd spelling of the name for a Brit, someone remarked, and they decided she had some connection to the region. Whatever the case, they welcomed her administrative skills. She noticed details.

She was very good at securing supplies of water.

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley and Bella have broken with Hell in their different ways -- one still demon, one now mortal -- and I'm not sure how Michael's defection might play out.. We may see her again, or not. CopperBeech, meanwhile, is going to the kitchen to find a cold cloth for the Author's head.
> 
> The poem Aziraphale quotes is "Lullaby," by the twentieth-century British poet Wystan Hughes Auden. No one knows to which of his lovers it was dedicated. The full text may be found here:  
https://poets.org/poem/lullaby-0
> 
> It's the perfect epithalamion for Bella and Chaz's hour above the shop.
> 
> Once again, the words of the handfasting ceremony are taken from an actual modern ritual. Okay, I improved (I hope) a few inelegancies in the language. 
> 
> Bella's dance was inspired in part by an incident in the death camps of the Third Reich, which I've seen described in more than one history. Recognizing one of his prisoners as a Polish dancer who had some local fame, one of the SS guards taunted her to dance. She did, danced right up to him and shot him with his own rifle. I hope it's true.
> 
> Comments are life -- I always answer!
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


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